Australian dancer’s sex abuse claims against Michael Jackson detailed in documentary

An Australian-born dancer has claimed he was molested as a seven-year-old boy by Michael Jackson at the late pop icon’s Neverland Ranch telling a new documentary he was Jackson’s “best friend and lover”.

• Can Michael Jackson’s fandom survive?

Shocking details of sexual abuse allegations against late pop icon Michael Jackson have been aired in a new documentary, with a Queensland-born dancer claiming he was molested as a boy in front of a giant cardboard cutout of Peter Pan at the singer’s Neverland Ranch.

Wade Robson was seven years old when Jackson promised he would help him in his career and convinced his family to move to the US after they danced onstage together at a Brisbane concert in the late 1980s.

Now 36, Mr Robson first made allegations against Jackson in 2013 three years after his death but last night the new HBO documentary Leaving Neverland aired new details of the alleged abuse, including that he was abused in front of an “elaborate Peter Pan cutout”.

Wade Robson (left) with Leaving Neverland director Dan Reed and fellow alleged victim James Safechuck. Picture: Taylor Jewell

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“(Jackson) helped me tremendously, he helped me with my career, he helped me with my creativity, with all of those sorts of things and he also sexually abused me for seven years,” Mr Robson said in the documentary.

“I liked the feeling that was making him happy, that was pleasing him. I left Australia as this young fan of Michael Jackson and came back Michael Jackson’s best friend and his lover.”

Jackson’s family has vehemently denied the allegations and is reportedly seeking legal action over the documentary.

Michael Jackson during a concert in Singapore in 1993. Picture: Roslan Rahman/AFP

After meeting at the Brisbane concert, Mr Robson was on holiday with his family in the US when Jackson invited his family to visit his Neverland Ranch property in California.

In Leaving Neverland, Mr Robson said the abuse started when his family left him in Jackson’s care to do more travelling.

“My whole family left and I had five days ahead of me, just me and Michael,” he said.

Mr Robson’s grandmother said the family had no idea of what was going on.

“We thought that Michael was teaching him all these dances, we thought how lucky he was to have somebody like that to teach him what to do,” she said.

Mr Robson, who is one of two alleged victims interviewed in the documentary, said the abuse began as groping before getting more severe.

Wade Robson pictured in the HBO documentary. Picture: HBO

“Then his hands got to my crotch area and he sort of fondling there (and then) it escalated rapidly, so taking showers together and fondling and kissing,” he said.

The director of Leaving Neverland, Dan Reed, said on US TV that the documentary’s genesis was when Mr Robson had his own child.

“I think a big moment for Wade, and Wade kind of led the way, was having his own son and then he began to imagine Michael doing the things to his little boy that he’d done to him, to seven-year-old Wade.